


Terrorist instincts

by Hypatia_66



Series: An UNCLE Gazetteer [26]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: ABC Challenge, Community: section7mfu, Gen, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 02:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: LJ ABC Affair II. Cities A-Z. Prompt: ZNapoleon and Illya are sent to offer security guidance after the threat to a major US icon





	Terrorist instincts

As the plane took off, Napoleon said, “What do you think?”

“About what?” said Illya, looking up from the file.

“ _Could_ someone blow up Hoover Dam?”

“In theory, you can blow anything up, but that dam is over seven hundred feet high and very strongly constructed of very, very thick concrete. It would take an atom bomb to destroy the whole dam.”

“It must have a weak point?”

“In the middle at the top – that’s where it’s thinnest – a very disruptive place to put a bomb because of being a major road as well.”

“It’s not too sensible to have a highway running across the top of it.”

“No, I expect it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Illya thought for a moment and said, “If I were planning sabotage, I’d go for something simpler and cheaper. Some small bombs would release enough water to damage the spillways and the powerplants. That would be enough to annoy a lot of people.”

“You’re a natural terrorist, as well as a tightwad, you know that?” Napoleon said. “But very useful to have around.”

“Thank you,” said Illya drily.

o00o

The danger to the communities along the Colorado River downstream of the dam was all too apparent. They would be swept away if anything happened to it.

“It was one reason the building of the dam took so long to be agreed,” Waverly had said at the briefing.

“But it was built with that in mind – it’s almost indestructible, I’d have thought,” said Napoleon. “Isn’t this an empty threat?”

“Empty threat or not, we can’t afford to take chances. I want you both to investigate.” The eyebrows and pipe offered no opportunity for contradiction.

o0o

When they joined a tour of the dam, Illya was struck by how easy it would be to carry out a reconnaissance. “I don’t think they should allow so many people to see so much of the structure,” he said in an aside to Napoleon. “It’s crazy.”

A tour of the two power plant wings concerned them even more. So many possibilities for disruption. Napoleon, never having been inside a power station (of any kind) before, was impressed by the scale of everything but had little idea of how everything tied together. As with all technical explanations, you needed to know a bit before you could take it in. Illya did, and could, of course.

“Did you ever see inside a hydropower station before?” Napoleon said to him as they left.

“Yes, of course,” said Illya. Of course – Napoleon should never have doubted it. Was there any subject he didn’t know something about?

“And?” he said.

“And what? – Oh, you mean where? The Dnieper Hydro-Electric Station, DnieproHES. It’s part of the Dnieprostroi Dam.”

Napoleon blinked. “Tell me more.”

“Napoleon, it’s very famous. How can you not know about it?”

“Easily.”

Illya sighed.  “It’s a hydropower station that’s part of a big dam on the Dnieper River in Ukraine, near Zaporizhia – what the Russians call Zaporozhe – you must have heard of it.”

Napoleon shook his head. “Sorry.”

“It’s older than the Hoover Dam so it was once the biggest dam in the world. It’s very different of course – it’s not in a canyon, the land is flat just there, but it was a big thing in Lenin’s plans for industrialisation of the USSR.”

“And you’ve been there?”

“Oh, yes. I was taken there after the war, to see the reconstruction.” At Napoleon’s blank look, he said, “It was blown up in 1941 – some say during the retreat by the Red Army, but others blame the NKVD. I think the operation must have been planned by them – there is a film that shows the explosions blowing a huge hole in the dam wall.”

He grew solemn. “No-one was warned so thousands upon thousands died in the cities in the path of the tidal surge – it was a disaster for my country. Here, it would be like blowing up the Panama Canal or the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Empire State Building, or something.”

“Or something… Like Hoover Dam.”

“Yes.”

oo000oo

Testing his own terrorist ideas, Illya looked down at the spillways. The huge overflow tunnels had the capacity of Niagara Falls but with enormous gates and a much longer, steep-angled drop of six hundred feet. Could someone attempt to damage them? They could, but there was no point. An uncontrolled release of water on its own would damage the lining of the spillway tunnels and potentially rupture the rock face. He looked across at the lake.

What about the intake towers? It would be suicide to swim near them, but a boat wouldn’t be sucked under. Blowing them up would prevent water from the lake going to the turbines. Maybe the plan was simply to damage the turbines and generators. That could cut power and water supplies to, say, Los Angeles, or Southern California and Mexico. It would be so easy to wreck the infrastructure of their economies…

That road over the dam – it was dangerous and far too narrow for the volume of traffic, but an easy place to get to. Maybe the Thrush plan was for the simplest method of all – the same as at Zaporozhe – a series of powerful bombs dropped over the inside of the dam wall, either from a truck, or from a boat. It would release a tidal wave, a hundred or more meters high… He felt sick.

oo000oo

He met Napoleon back in the control centre where he had been learning about how the dam worked and the security measures already in place.

The Area Manager of the Bureau of Reclamation, under whose aegis the dam fell, told them that the dam’s security was pretty tight already – it even had its own police force – but, alerted to the threat, he thought it would be a good idea to close more parts of the interior to visitors. It would even be easy enough to close the road occasionally.

“You’ll need to step up security patrols and searches inside the dam and the power plants,” said Napoleon. “What about the vetting of your employees?”

The Manager reassured them on that point but added, “Maybe we should carry out random searches of visitors, too? As a deterrent if nothing else…"

“You should also increase security patrols in Lake Mead,” Illya said. “Dropping bombs by the wall of the dam or the intake towers would be easy. They could be set off from a distance when the boat has long since disappeared.”

“Is that what happened in Zapo-whatsit?” said Napoleon, earning himself an Illya look and a phonetics lesson.

“Za-pa-rozh-ye, Napoleon, the Dnieper dam. Yes, something like that, I think.”

The Manager, listening, gulped. He had heard of that one. “But who’s going to pay for it all?” he said mournfully.

“I shouldn’t think that would be a problem given the reasons,” said Napoleon.

“And you ought to check vehicles crossing the dam, especially trucks,” said, Illya, still enumerating possible security strategies.

The Manager, ruefully thinking about all the increased procedures he was going to have to install, said jokingly, “You know it would be a great idea if someone built a bypass.”

The two agents smiled. That would certainly help the security situation but, in the face of what might be an empty threat, who would want to spend that kind of money?

ooo0000ooo

**Author's Note:**

> The bypass was opened only in 2010


End file.
